PLEASE MAKE THE PAIN STOP
by jaime-lannisters
Summary: and what do you know of bravery? / lavender brown thinks the world is just the same scenario played again and again by different casts of characters.


**written for**: quidditch league fanfiction competition (appleby arrows)

**prompts**: Dialogue: "I can honestly say that I do not care." / who we were / "Fear is only a verb if you let it be" -— Andrea Gibson

**disclaimer**: not my world.

**warnings**: written around two o'clock in the morning, some swearing, heavy usage of memories, implied slight insanity.

* * *

drink the poison lightly

because there are deeper and darker things than you

i know, i've been there too

- you're not the one, **3oh!3**

* * *

Her world is fractured— a window with a thousand cracks, and Godric, all the things she fought so hard to lock away within her are trying to escape.

They all have names and identities and memories but no, she's stronger than this, no, she's a Gryffindor, she's braver than this, no, she's a survivor and she knows better than to feel.

Feelings mean guilt, you see. Guilt and regrets and insecurity and inadequacy and this undeniable roaring rage and devastation. Feelings mean memories and emotion; love and pain, fear and joy that hindsight renders bittersweet.

She's been scared enough in her life already, and she refuses to give in. Fear is only present tense if she allows it to be, only matters and affects her if she can't fight it, and she can, she can, she's Lavender fucking Brown and she can do it.

Because if she can't survive herself, then what can she do?

She passes WWW, and the red and gold draperies remind her of her sorting, and it's like she's eleven all over again—

She's sitting under the hat and praying for a place where she can be loved. The hat shouts _GRYFFINDOR_ and she's the first, she's the first. She's not the Golden Trio, but she's the first in their year to be sorted into Gryffindor, and that's got to count for something, even if it's just that the universe granted her the small mercy of appearing early in the alphabet. When all you have are small mercies, you learn to appreciate them pretty quickly.

—and she wanders into a bar, golden locks scattered over one shoulder and a mess of scars adorning the other.

"I'll have the strongest poison you've got," she says, and she's really not sure if she means alcohol or actual poison. Either way, the bartender nods and so does she, and presto, the exchange is done and her future hinges on the interpretation of her words taken by this tattooed boy with blue eyes.

It's an oddly liberating feeling, not caring about your future and leaving it up to the universe. It's the most content she's ever been, and there's something inherently sad in that, she supposes.

A glass is set down before her, and she looks up into blue eyes and falls right into them—

It's second year, and Gilderoy Lockheart flicks his hair out of his eyes as he leans on her desk, and, oh Godric, she can't help the silly smile that spreads across her pretty face.

"His hair's so golden – did you see it? I just wanted to touch it; it looks so soft! – and his eyes, his_ eyes_! They're just so _blue_," Lavender prattles to Parvati as they leave the class, ignoring the looks of disgust on the boys' faces.

"Lavender, you realise that he's like, fifty, right?" Seamus demands.

"Not to mention a right prat," Ron adds in a mutter.

She flounces off with Parvati, ignoring the sage nods the boys all give each other as they continue verbally abusing poor Professor Lockhart.

"You know, Seamus actually looks a bit like Professor Lockhart," Parvati comments.

Lavender makes a non-committal noise, but privately agrees; with his sandy hair and those wonderful blue eyes, he does look a bit like the Professor.

—before being jerked out of her reverie by a slightly pointed cough.

"Sorry," she mutters, picking up the glass and downing it before instantly gagging.

The bartender snickers. "You haven't done this much before, have you?" he asks, with a thick Irish accent that does funny things to her insides. He can't be who she wishes he was, though, because this boy has dark hair and anyway—

"What about you, Dean, whatcha doing for the holidays?"

It's third year, walking towards the North Tower, and her dormmate, Fay, is trying to make small talk with her flavour of the week.

"Uh, I'm staying with Seamus," Dean answers with a polite smile, and Lavender turns to Seamus.

"You're going home, then?" she asks, and he responds with a wide grin that reminds her of better times in later years.

"Home to me ma," he confirms, and there's such pure love in his voice that Lavender immediately feels a bit lonely. She's so glad that Dean has Seamus and that Seamus has his mother because they're her friends, and she wants them to be happy. She just can't help but wish she had something like that herself. She knows her parents love her, really, but it's a little hard to remember when they don't tell her.

"What 'bout you, Lav?" Seamus asks, and she forces a smile onto her face.

"Well, Mother's busy in the French Ministry – their Department of Law Enforcement is in absolute _shambles_ – and Daddy's quite wrapped up with the Wizengamot so I'll probably be independent at home. You know how it is," she says airily and all the others _ooh_ and _ahh_ and a few looks of jealousy - mainly courtesy of Fay - are shot her way, and she's done it, she's convinced them.

All except Seamus, that is, but he's always had this way of looking right at her and seeing exactly what she's trying to lock away, so she's not surprised.

However, she is surprised when he comes up to her later and promises he'll write to her. It's a good surprise, though, because she knows Seamus Finnigan and she knows he keeps his promises.

—Seamus isn't in England anymore. He went off back to Ireland after the war, while she was still in St Mungo's, without a goodbye or anything– _STOP THINKING ABOUT IT, LAVENDER. _

She realises she hasn't answered the question the bartender posed, so she turns to him snootily and says, "I'm sorry, I didn't realise that was any of your business?"

"Calm down," he says, raising an eyebrow. "I can honestly say that I do not care about your drinking habits – I'm just sayin' that s'obvious to anybody that's had a drink that you haven't, s'all. After all, there's other ways to drown your sorrows – which you shouldn't need to. I've seen worse things than a pretty blonde with attitude."

"Your enunciation is atrocious," she mutters, before plastering a charming smile on her face and twisting her body around so it isn't her pretty side that's visible to him, it's her scarred side, the one that looks more like how she is within; desperately wanting more healing, anything to fix its ruin.

He whistles low, and says, "how's the other guy look?"

She does not smile. "A corpse mangled beyond repair." Lavender hopes that he'll get the message and leave her alone, but she wouldn't be surprised if he didn't; she's been subject to Irish stubbornness for a long time.

He gives her a measuring look. "I once knew a girl with a few scars," he says conversationally. "She was constantly looking for approval, and it only ever ended up scarring her. She was probably the saddest thing I've ever seen, but _god_, she was beautiful."

Lavender blinks back tears because the memories are overwhelming as they swirl in her, emotions desperately trying to escape—

Her hair's done up in a twist with flowers laced through her locks, and her dress looks like a dream. She stands at the top of the stairs and the world is a kingdom and she is the queen.

"Godric, she's beautiful," she can hear Seamus say to Dean, and the pretty blush the comes across her face is the real thing.

"You look perfect, Lav," he says to her as he approaches, holding out her arm for him to clasp as they enter the Yule Ball.

They dance and they laugh and they chat and they sit and they have the sort of night that isn't dreamed about, but is perfect anyway.

The following week, she's sitting alone in the corner, trying to bite back tears about news that her grandfather's dead, and Seamus shows up.

"What's wrong, Lavender?" he asks, concern in his voice.

"My grandfather's dead and I never really got to know him because he was scary and he had nightmares about the war but he loved my grandmother _so much_ and that's got to count for _something_ and I wish I'd known him and I wish he wasn't dead and oh _Merlin_ I can't believe I'm rambling to you like this and my face must be so blotchy and-" the words overflow out of her mouth, like the tears from her eyes, and oh Godric, he's still there, watching her come apart.

He puts his arms around her with all of the awkwardness of the fourteen year old boy he is, and he pats her on the head. "It's all right, Lavender, it's okay. Let it out."

She almost doesn't hear him whisper, "you look as beautiful as always," but she does, she does, and that's when she thinks that maybe she could stop looking for approval; that's the moment she falls a little bit in love with Seamus Finnigan.

—but they can't escape, because she's Lavender Brown and she's better than that.

"She sounds... pathetic," Lavender says coolly, trying to ignore the barbs that shoot towards her own heart with her words.

"I bet she thought so," he says with a wry grin. "She was pretty amazing, actually. One of those girls that loved to be the centre of attention, but I never minded that. I understood it, really. And she was brave. Don't you doubt that. She was brave."

Lavender raises an eyebrow and resists the urge to scream because he's so obviously in love with this girl, and she's so clearly not worth it because she reminds Lavender of herself and Lavender's not worth anybody's love. Lavender's not worth anything.

"And what would you know about bravery?" she asks quietly, accusation in her tone. She was a Gryffindor and went through a war and this boy, this boy with tattoos and a painfully familiar infatuation with an unworthy girl wants to tell her he knows what bravery is?

"People can surprise you," he says—

"People can surprise you!" Lavender shouts at Seamus, and she doesn't care that Dean and Parvati are staring and she doesn't care about the look in Seamus' eyes because she just wants to shake him into seeing things from her point of view.

"What, so you believe Potter now?" Seamus snarls, and Lavender resists the urge to fling the lamp at him.

"I didn't say that," she protests. "I said that he's teaching us how to fight and that's worth more to me right now than what the Prophet's saying. And anyway, even if I did believe him, that would be okay because Harry's nice and I can believe what I like," she shoots at him.

"Did you really just use 'Harry's nice' as your basis for believing him?" Seamus asks in disbelief. "Are you honestly that silly?"

She glares at him. "Maybe I am silly sometimes, but at least I'm not too stubborn to rethink my views. You're not always right Seamus, and neither is your Mum," she delivers quietly, before storming off to her dorm.

She sees him at DA a month later, and refuses to talk to him until after she manages to Stun him.

"What made you change your mind?" she asks him after she's forgiven him.

He glances at her. "You and Dean, mostly. I guess what you said. People can surprise you."

—"but I doubt I can say anything that'll really change your mind. Some people are just too damn stubborn," he informs her.

She glares at him. He laughs. "You remind me of her, sort of."

She grumbles. "What was the deal with you two?" she asks eventually, curious to see whether the similarities continued. Life, she thinks, is just the same scenario played out again and again with a different cast of characters each time.

"I was absolutely gone for her, so naturally, she was in love with someone else," he shares. "Well, at least she thought she was, and to make matters worse, I was a pretty thick sixteen year old so I wasn't really sure how I felt anyway."

Parts of that feel uncomfortably familiar to Lavender, but she snorts anyway. "What a fairytale," she remarks.

He laughs and Godric, it's familiar but it's not him; her mind's just playing tricks on her, hoping to manipulate her into setting her feelings free but she won't, she won't.

"That's one word for it," he says wryly. "I was sort of doomed that year to being second-best," and she can relate—

Contrary to popular belief, Lavender's never hated Hermione Granger. Yes, she and Wo– _Ron_ broke up because of whatever was going on between him and Hermione, and she and Hermione had never been particularly close, but she's never hated Hermione.

She's been jealous, but not for the reasons everyone thinks.

The thing Lavender had liked best about Ron was the fact that he was the same as her; always second-best, and hating it. He wasn't the first prefect in his family, nor the best on the Quidditch team, and he wasn't good at school and his best friends were Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, and Lavender knew that.

She knows that she only ever chased after him because he was the same as her; she supposes that she hoped they could love each other the way they'd always wished they'd been loved.

Except then there was Hermione, and Lavender knows she came on too strong, she does, but she just couldn't help it. Those small mercies that the universe grants can only last so long before you start craving something that's not yours to keep.

She isn't upset because Ron left, not really, nor Hermione's personality – she's just so sick of being alone, always being second-best.

She knows this is true, as she watches them laugh in the common room, as she sees the smile on Hermione's face as she comes up to the dorm to sleep. Lavender knows this, but it doesn't make it any easier. Sometimes, she thinks she shouldn't have been Gryffindor, because she's not noble or chivalrous and she doesn't know if she can be brave. Sometimes, she thinks she should just be alone.

—_Godric_, she can relate. "Does that ever change?" she asks sardonically, and _whoops_, there goes a tinge of bitterness only born from memories. She panics internally, and builds another wall around her fortress in her mind.

"The feeling of being second-best or actually being it?" he asks, and she gives a non-committal shrug. "It changed for me, sorta," he tells her. "The bloke, he wasn't around anymore, and it was a hard year – more devastating than any year has the right to be–"

"The world doesn't care about how we think it's entitled to behave," she interrupts. She should know; she's living the sort of nightmare born only out of cruelty she'd never believed humans could possess until the war.

He glances at her, and seems to appraise her, before sighing. "Tell me, Lavender; what do you remember of Seventh Year?" and her memories have captured her before she can resist—

"I'm so scared, I'm so scared, Seamus, I'm so scared."

"What have you done with Dean, you bastards? Where's my best friend?"

"They're telling people he's dead, Lav. Because he's a Muggleborn."

"It'll be okay, it'll be-"

"HE CANNOT BE DEAD, LAVENDER!"

"I hate Carrow, I hate her, I hate her. I want to break her neck. If she touches Neville _one more time–_"

"Ginny, any news?"

"PLEASE STOP THE PAIN OH MERLIN IT HURTS IT HURTS JUST STOP PLEASE PLEASE I'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT JUST PLEASE ST-"

"Filthy little mudblood, he is!"

"Go to hell, Death Eater scum."

"Neville, if you keep snarking back at her, she _will_ kill you."

"Where's Harry?"

"It's just a flesh wound, Lav, you'll be fine, Hannah'll mend you right up."

"I thought the good guys were meant to win the wars."

"We will, Lav. We will."

—and suddenly she's back and _he called her Lavender_.

"Oh my Godric, _Seamus_?" she blurts out and suddenly his dark hair and tattoos don't even mean a thing because all she can see is the sandy-haired boy with blue eyes that told her she was beautiful a lifetime ago.

"Hi, Lavender," he says with a small smile.

Suddenly, she's furious because _HE LEFT HER DAMMIT LEFT HER HIGH AND DRY AND ALONE IN A HOSPITAL BED AND–_

"What the fuck, Seamus?" she demands and the word tastes filthy on her tongue but she's Lavender and she survived Fenrir Greyback and she's hard now, so she can ignore that. "You don't get to just waltz back–"

"If I recall correctly, you walked into my joint," he interrupts. He looks at her seriously. "Lav, do you remember the battle?" he asks and she wants to scream because of course she remembers the battle and please don't send her back there please—

There is fighting and bloodshed and so much pain but she can't stop because stopping means dying and that is not an option, not today.

"Ginny, above!" she screams but she doesn't have time to see if Dolohov is down or if its Ginny, and she doesn't have the strength either. She can't see another friend lying on the floor, she can't. She runs around, not looking at faces and shooting curses at anyone who's firing on a friend because that seems like the only way to escape this battle even halfway sane.

"LAVENDER, BEHIND YOU!" she hears a shout and she whirls around and then she sees the sight that haunts her dreams and nightmares and memories, the single most terrifying moment in her life; she sees Fenrir Greyback, going for the kill.

There is pain, indescribable pain, _OH GODRIC IT BURNS AND IT'S BLINDING_ and she passes out, thinking, _I wasn't even good enough to live. _

—she snaps at Seamus, "of course I remember!" She gestures at her scars. "I live with visual memories on my skin."

He winces. "Lavender Brown, do you think you're brave?" he asks.

A million responses swirl through her head and the one that comes out is "I wish."

He closes his eyes, and groans. "Lavender, you are the single bravest person I've ever met, and I owe you my gratitude that I've had the chance to test that since the battle." At her confused and guarded look, he sighs. "Look, at the battle... you were a machine. You had everyone's back, and none more than mine. Those scars are my fault. If you hadn't jumped in front of me, Greyback would have got me."

She stares at him, open-mouthed, and her fortress breaks. All the memories come flooding back, the terror mounting in her at the sight of Greyback leaping for Seamus, the crippling pain, waking up in St Mungo's all alone and wishing every day he'd come find her.

"Why weren't you there when I woke up?" she asks in a broken voice, and really, it's the only question that matters. Lavender Brown has been strong for too long, and now she wants to know why she had to be.

"Because I couldn't look you in the eye and tell you that I wasn't worth it," he says. "Because I couldn't say 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' without one of them sounding like a lie."

She turns away because is that all she gets, after all this time? Is that the approval she's been waiting for, the answers she's been seeking?

Somehow, she'd always thought she'd feel a bit more satisfied.

The memories and emotions and revelations threaten to overwhelm her, and it doesn't matter if he found her beautiful once, she's scarred now and ugly and he's tattooed and dark haired and they're not who they were, and she can't cry in front of him anymore.

"I have to go," she says, and she thinks she'll be back, but she's not sure, and she thinks she still loves him, but she's not sure he deserves it. She runs out the door and ignores him calling out her name. She runs and runs until she gets to a cemetery and she sinks down into the snow, weeping into her hands.

She's Lavender Brown and her world is fractured into a black hole of devastation and memories that pull on her every day, and try to break her strength.

She's Lavender Brown and she's not second-best anymore, but she's alone, she's so alone.

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**a/n. **please don't favorite without reviewing. please review, and i hope it wasn't a thoroughly awful experience for you.


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